Tricycle Blog

In an effort to keep the news and its people farther apart than they already are, the Burmese junta has imposed massive fees on satellite television license renewals, according to the BBC:
Satellite channels were a key source of information for Burmese residents during September's crackdown on anti-government campaigners, in which at least 31 people died.
Soap operas and sporting events are also popular.
The cost of renewing the satellite dish rose from 6000 kyat (approximately $5.00) to 1 million kyat ($800). This is three times the average annual salary, obviously out of reach of all but a very few privileged elites.
Evolutionary Mind has a review of B.
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Burma leads the world in number of child soldiers. Kids are literally pulled off the street and "drafted":
While 15-year-old San Lin Aung stood waiting for a train home at Pyinmana railroad station, an army sergeant approached him and asked to see his ID.
The boy couldn't produce one, so the soldier sent him to an army recruitment unit in Mingalardon, on the outskirts of Rangoon. The officer in charge of the unit refused to enlist him, but another unit in Mandalay accepted him without question.
Two 14 year-olds, Kyaw Min Thu from South Dagon, and a youngster from North Okkalapa, were also forcibly recruited by the army in late April, according to reports.
There may be as many as 70,000 child soldiers (and the number is growing) in Burma, according to a 2002 Human Rights Watch report.
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Tom (of Blogmandu and Thoughts Chase Thoughts and other sites) has brought a great and powerful blog to our attention: One Foot in Front of the Other, which is the blog of a Zen practitioner named Michael whose illness has placed him the position of directly confronting the great matter of life and death. On December 14th he wrote:
I'm curled up on a bed in an ER exam room.
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Dear Friends,
We are writing to ask your support for two beloved friends of ours, Stephen and Ondrea Levine. They are currently facing significant difficulty. After a life-time of giving, they are now at a time to receive from those of us whose lives have been touched by their presence and teaching.
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Look out, Myanmar, Laura Bush is gonna getcha! Pop quiz: What was her First Lady project? Whatever it was, she's letting the junta have it in no uncertain terms:
"The junta has made no meaningful attempt to meet and talk with democratic activists. Instead it has continued to harass and detain them," Laura Bush said.
"The junta leaders continue to sell the country's natural resources to enrich themselves. While they reject international calls for a democratic transition, they have put Burma in shambles and placed its people in a perilous state," she said.
"Children are being trafficked and subject to forced recruitment into the military; citizens are fleeing the country to seek work and basic healthcare; meanwhile infectious diseases, including AIDS and malaria, continue to spread unchecked," said Laura Bush.
Right on.
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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution Monday night to give Aung San Suu Kyi the Congressional gold medal, the same award that was recently given to the Dalai Lama to China's chagrin. The resolution was accompanied by some half-hearted language of condemnation for the junta:
“It is time for the military junta to recognize the will of the Burmese people and open the door for true reconciliation. By awarding Suu Kyi with the Congressional Gold Medal, we send a strong message that enough is enough,” [Representative Don Manzullo (R-IL)] said.
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The Burmese junta has released 96 monks from the September protests -- maybe some of them will find a way to tell the story of their months in captivity.
And the headline says it all: "Rapping Monks, Nuns Hit Catwalk". This one comes courtesy of The Worst Horse and was also noticed by Urban Monk.
What's Wal-Mart up to now? Killing Amur (Siberian) tigers, apparently.
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Well, you gotta hand it to Washington. Our government, which has given up on combatting (or even admitting) human-influenced climate change, is not giving up on Burma, at least rhetorically (It helps that Iran seems to be off the table for now.) Congress is finally pushing a bill through the gridlock that will cut off some finances for the junta. About time! And Bush promises more sanctions. On another note Danny Fisher points out we can sign a petition to tell the world we don't support the Bush administration's obstruction vis a vis the Bali talks.
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A very cool movie by Andy Ferguson on the burial site of Bodhidharma is up on YouTube. The site has only recently been rediscovered and, even more recently, been refurbished. This will become a major pilgrimage site for Zen practitioners in the years to come. Thanks to the ZenFrog for pointing it out. Visit South Mountain Tours for more info on how to get there.
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The world (plus Laura Bush, whatever planet she's on) is running out of patience with Myanmar's generals, says U.N sec-gen Ban Ki Moon. It seems Burma's leaders (as well as a certain U.S. president) don't much care what the U.N. says:
U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has been awaiting permission from the Burmese government to visit Burma to continue efforts to broker negotiations between the military leadership and the opposition. Gambari has been in Burma twice since the violent September crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators.
The U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva also condemned Burma again.
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Despite Europe's interest in eating local foods to reduce food miles, "Europeans are eating — and importing — more food from outside the E.U. than ever before," according to DotEarth, a New York Times blog. In May the Times of London reported:
Scottish prawns are being hand-shelled in China, Atlantic haddock caught off Scotland is being prepared in Poland and Welsh cockles are being sent to Holland to be put in jars before going on sale in Britain.
Eating local is simply not possible in a world of 6.7 billion people (and counting) says Andrew Revkin, who writes the blog. So what to do? Find alternative, less-polluting fuel sources.
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Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski's Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions From Great Philosophers was supposed to be longer. Or rather, it is longer in the original Polish: the English-language version (or at least the American version) drops seven philosophers, leaving twenty-three thinkers and their questions. The questions span the whole range of philosophical concern: What is the human spirit? How is knowledge possible? What is evil? What is the source of truth? Many questions are variations on what we can know and how we can be certain of anything (i.e. epistemology.)
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The junta is firmly back in control, and international "efforts" to bring change to Burma has failed, according to the New York Times, and it's hard to argue. The junta toyed with the NLD and waited out the international indignation, all the while being enabled by ASEAN. And the crackdown was bloodier than reported (of course) according to Human Rights Watch. Now, back to business. Rubies, anyone?
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An ex-monk, Thanh Thach of Cambodia, was delivering pizza in Richmond, California on November 26th when he was gunned down by unknown assailants. He leaves a wife, Eng Heng, owner of a nail salon in San Anselmo, California and a U.S. citizen since the mid-90s, and three sons. His story reads like the dark side of the American dream, the ferocious struggle to get by in this country:
Thach, who earned his U.S. citizenship in September, had recently lost his job as a mail handler at the U.S. Postal Service center in West Oakland and had been delivering pizzas for about a month. He had earned his manicurist license.
How much is said in those quiet sentences.
HOW TO HELP
Pizza Hut has established a Thanh Thach memorial fund.
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Joan Duncan Oliver wrote a piece for Tricycle about compassionate gift-giving that might help with some tricky decisions this holiday season.
Singapore - City - Zen links to an amazing article on alternet.org, Dress for Excess: The Cost of Our Clothing Addiction. (S-C-Z often has great environmental links.) Here's some brief passages from the Alternet article:
The numbers are astonishing. Apparel is easily the second-biggest consumer sector after food. We're spending $282 billion on new clothes annually, up from $162 billion in 1992, based on U.S. Census figures.
. .
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This morning, insight meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg appeared with Tricycle editor James Shaheen on a show called "Be Happy, Dammit!" on Sirius radio at Lime 114 in a conversation with host Karen Salmansohn, bestselling author many books on happiness. For more on Karen, see notsalmon.com. Here's a programming schedule for the channel -- Be Happy, Dammit! airs weekdays at 8 AM East Coast time. Sharon is of course well known in the Buddhist community.
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More bloody confrontations unavoidable, says a Burmese monk, now in exile. (The Guardian Weekly out of the U.K. reported on November 16th (using reportage from Le Monde) that monks in Pakokku said, "If prices keep going up there will be more rallies. We didn't like the army entering the monasteries." They also reported a while ago that international outrage was fading fast over Burma.
Ask Pamela Gayle White! The translator, writer, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism is available for your questions on the tricycle website until December 21st.
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This cartoon from our friend Roberto Guerra more or less sums it up:
And here's a short clip of some beautiful chanting from the annual 24 Hour Nembutsu of the Amida Trust, from Pure Land Etchings. Here's a brief "Theory of Nembutsu" if you'd like to know more. The term roughly means Buddha in Mind, or Mindfulness of the Buddha, and derives, I think, from the Sanskrit Namo Amitabha Buddha. Comments clarifying this would be most welcome!
- Philip Ryan, Web Editor
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Reading about perfectionism / OCD in the New York Times. A counselor at U.C. Davis treating perfectionists gives them this advice:
Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.
David Brooks, in another part of the paper, talks about China being a radical meritocracy (no one leaves work on time there):
When you talk to Americans, you find that they have all these weird notions about Chinese communism. You try to tell them that China isn’t a communist country anymore. It’s got a different system: meritocratic paternalism. You joke: Imagine the Ivy League taking over the shell of the Communist Party and deciding not to change the name.
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